On the occasion of the artist’s new monograph, Nicola Tyson: Selected Paintings 1993–2022, Petzel hosted a conversation with Tyson alongside Ksenia M. Soboleva.
Nicola Tyson was born in 1960 in London, England. She attended Chelsea School of Art, St. Martins School of Art, and Central/St. Martins School of Art in London and currently lives and works in New York, NY. Recent solo exhibitions include Nicola Tyson (a survey of drawings), Nino Mier Gallery, Los Angeles, CA (2024), Nicola Tyson: A Bit Touched, Nino Mier Gallery, Belgium, Brussels (2022), Holding Pattern, Sadie Coles HQ, London, UK (2021), and Sense of Self, Petzel Gallery, New York, NY (2020). In 2017, she was the subject of solo exhibitions at The Drawing Room, London, and the Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis, St. Louis, Missouri. In 2011 Tyson released the limited-edition book, Dead Letter Men, a collection of satirical letters addressing famous male artists. The book was designed by Peter Miles and published by Petzel Gallery, New York, and Sadie Coles HQ, London. Her unique archive of color photos documenting the London club scene of the late 1970s—Bowie Nights at Billy’s Club—was the subject of shows, both in New York and London, in 2012 and 2013.
Tyson’s work is included in major collections such as Museum of Modern Art, New York; Whitney Museum of Art, New York; Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia; Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; UCLA Hammer Museum, Los Angeles; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.; National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington D.C.; Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; and Tate Modern, London.
Dr. Ksenia M. Soboleva is a New York based writer and art historian specializing in queer art and culture. She holds a PhD from the Institute of Fine Arts, NYU, with a dissertation on art, AIDS, and lesbian identity in the United States. Currently, she is working on a book project titled "Friendship as a Way of Art: Queer Identity and Visual Citation," and co-editing the first monograph of the queer 1990s gallery Trial BALLOON (forthcoming with Karma). Soboleva is a regular contributor to the Brooklyn Rail and BOMB magazine, and her writings have appeared in various exhibition catalogues and artist monographs. She teaches at the New School and NYU.